Just Another Day
by Vision in Blue
Summary: "And you know that for forever, everyday is just another day."  Morning after Diana's attempted suicide, Natalie drabble.


_Just Another Day_

**A/n: I can't write my freaking speech. So I'm going to write a fanfic. Sending all my love to Twinsie, Daddy Goodman (who probably won't read this, anyway), and acciosanity (twitter, folks; go follow her) for helping me with a tough time in my life. *sends cookies***

**Disclaimer: I dropped out of Spanish 4, so I can't tell you how I neither own Next to Normal, nor own my Siamese twin en espanol (the n has an invisible tilde). /: )**

When you first wake up, life doesn't hit you. You're still in a state of naivety as you lie in bed. The early morning sunrise starts to bleed through your blinds, and you try to block it with your pillow. There's a new painful sensation in your head, sure, and unease inhabits your body, but nothing hits you yet. Everything seems fine.

Then you realize you don't hear the shower running.

She always took a shower in the early morning. It was one of the many obnoxious habits your mother had, and it was number three on the list of things you wouldn't miss in college. 5:50 in the morning, the shower would be running, and she'd sometimes hum a few bars of some song that was popular when she was in college. This always woke you up a good twenty minutes before you needed to be, and once you heard the damn showerhead gushing water you would shut your bedroom door to block out the noise. Nothing really happened when you did that, though; it just softened the tone, like hearing a noisy crowd while wearing earplugs. After a while, you didn't notice it as much.

It only takes you a few seconds to remember why you don't hear it.

She's not here because she's in a hospital bed. She's probably restrained to the bed, gauze and iodine covering the wounds she inflicted upon herself. She's there because while you were at school yesterday, she tried to take her own life. And she's probably still sedated right now, not knowing or caring what you did last night.

You remember why your head hurts, now. You tried to make the pain go away. You took one too many pills and practically fainted, and you can't even remember where. You were so fucking pissed that Henry was on your tail all night, but you didn't mind it when he made sure you didn't hit the ground. Your head hurts right now and you feel uneasy because you're still facing after effects from the high.

Like it or not, you need to get out of bed. The world isn't stopping for you. Would anyone know about this at school? You can't remember if Henry knows or not; you faintly remember crying in his car last night, his sweatshirt around you, about seeing blood.

The blood. You can still see some of it on the bathroom floor. You go to brush your teeth, and in the mirror's reflection you see it on the outside of the bathtub. When your mind tries to envision how it must have gotten there, you physically shake your head to try to stop the thoughts. You try to continue the rest of your bathroom routine not looking in the mirror (you already know you look like a mess, anyway), and it almost works. Then you need to start the water for a shower, and you see more of it inside the tub.

You cup your hand to your mouth and step back. Your mother did this. She took the razor to her skin with the intention of drawing blood, and sat in that very bathtub trying to kill herself. There's no way you can risk stepping on the dried blood stains just to shower. You look like shit, but you run out of the bathroom and change out of your pajamas.

After making yourself as decent as you can possibly look, you go downstairs to find your father isn't burning breakfast; he's probably at her side at the hospital. The bus comes in a few minutes, so you put your bag together, grab a coat, and find a granola bar you can eat on the bus. You ignore the foreign footprints on your snow covered porch as you leave and lock the door behind you. You ignore the faint tire tracks from the ambulance that still exist on the driveway. You walk to the bus stop like nothing's wrong, because you can't let the world know that you're hurting. You can't drag anyone into this shit. When the bus comes along, you take your usual seat in the front and put your iPod on for the remainder of the ride.

After all; today's just another day.


End file.
